Gameplay Insights #2 : Science, Culture and Religion Trees

Greetings, Astra Odysseans!

Today, we’re excited to share some of Beyond Astra’s core grand strategy gameplay and mechanics.

Development continues to progress steadily, navigating the inherent complexities of game creation.

On a related note, Valentin recently had the opportunity to discuss the game with Strategy and Wargaming. If you’d like a deeper dive into our design philosophy, he provides more context in the interview.

Beyond Astra is a 4X sci-fi game that unfolds both in space and on the planet’s surface, with a core focus on tangible action. This means you won’t just be clicking through menus, you’ll be directly building cities, defending against wildlife, and clashing with empires and galactic crises. Our interface is designed to be clear and fluid, serving this hands-on experience to enhance your strategic freedom and deepen the immersion. This philosophy is the foundation for our six pillars of grand strategy: Science, Culture, Religion, Economy, Military, and Diplomacy. Today, let’s dive into the first three.

Science

In Beyond Astra, scientific advancement is a direct result of your curiosity. On planets and in the depths of space, you’ll find a universe of phenomena to analyze: alien nests, anomalies, ruins, ressources, unique biodiversity, and more.

Each analysis generates Exploration Points, which directly fuel your scientific breakthroughs. As you accumulate these points, you earn Knowledge, the resource you spend to launch research projects. Every additional research lab you build accelerates your progress and allows you to tackle more advanced technologies.

Concept diagram science tree

To keep things intuitive, all technologies are categorized based on their 4X purpose:

• Explore: Technologies to push back the frontiers of the unknown.
• Expand: Technologies to improve your cities, colonize new worlds, and terraform planets.
• Exploit: Technologies to enhance your industry, logistics, energy, and resource extraction.
• Exterminate: Technologies that unlock powerful military units and modules, from the early game to the late game.

Additionally, there are two special categories:

• Civ Tech: Allows you to directly upgrade your species through genomic, synthetic, and computational advancements.
• Strategic Tech: The most powerful technologies, tied to rare strategic resources, each unlocking game changing capabilities.

The tech tree expands outwards from the center, with each node representing a distinct technology. Our goal was to tie the pursuit of science directly to the tangible act of exploring the galaxy, offering a system that is both simple to understand and deep enough to let you freely forge your own path based on your strategic needs.

Religion

At the start of each game, your civilization establishes a Religion. Your first task is to convert your non-believing population and then spread your faith to other empires. Each believer generates Faith, a resource spent monthly to maintain your chosen doctrines.

Concept diagram religion tree

The religion tree is divided into three tiers, which you unlock from the bottom up. You can disable doctrines you no longer need, freeing up Faith for other uses.

• The Roots: These are your foundational choices that determine how your religion expands and who it targets, aligning with your overall gameplay strategy.
• The Trunk: This section provides direct bonuses based on the populations you have successfully converted.
• The Branches & Fruits: This is where you unlock powerful active abilities called Manifestations, as well as advanced passive bonuses that can turn the tide of the game.

We designed this pillar because we feel the search for meaning is a universal drive, a drive that naturally leads to the spread and interaction of ideas. We built it as an active dynamic of spread, where your beliefs are a force you project into the galaxy. This is why the system is centered on strategic targeting, allowing you to adapt your method of spreading your faith to your playstyle and to each game’s unique challenges. The “Manifestations” themselves can be interpreted as anything from divine acts to powerful psionic feats, making this pillar a powerful tool not just for its own victory condition, but also as a tool for achieving any other victory.

Culture

We believe a civilization’s culture is the sum of its people’s lifestyle, arts, values, and heritage, all shaped by their environment. To bring this idea to life, a city’s attractiveness is determined by its unique composition and planetary environment, which in turn determine how many Culture Points it generates.

This creates a new strategic layer that makes your rare worlds valuable assets, both as cultural beacons and as highly contested objectives. Tourism itself becomes a competitive arena, impacting your economy, diplomacy, and even the spread of ideas and faith across empires.

So, once your civilization is generating Culture Points, what do you do with them? This leads to the big design question: How do you classify the countless forms a sci-fi culture could take, regardless of its species or language? Our answer is the Culture system, our take on a universal framework that categorizes any society’s core identity.

You’ll spend Culture Points on Cultural Paths, which are organized into three Philosophies: Idealist, Pragmatic, and Subversive.

Concept diagram culture tree

Each Path unlocks a series of bonuses, culminating in a powerful gameplay modifier. You are free to choose any path to begin, as there is no linear progression. The goal is to give you the freedom to experiment and mix paths, creating a unique blend that serves your strategic needs while also defining the unique identity of the civilization at the heart of your own space opera.

For example, you could:

• Combine the Path of Reason with the Inner Path to create that stoic civilization of pointy-eared that has mastered its violent emotions through pure logic and deep meditation.
• Fully embrace the Path of Purification to launch a grim, galaxy-spanning crusade, purging all alien life and heresy with religious fervor to honor a god-like leader enthroned for millennia.
• Master Domination, Disruption, and Manipulation to forge a ruthless empire fueled by the belief that raw emotion and personal ambition are the true keys to ultimate power.

All six pillars are deeply linked to each other and to the tangible gameplay, both on the ground and across the galaxy. We are incredibly proud of these systems. They are the result of hard work, a deep passion for the genre, and a commitment to creating a game where your grand strategic decisions have a visible and meaningful impact. 

We can’t wait for you to experience it all in-game, and that opportunity is getting closer. If you’re interested in getting more frequent updates and want a chance to be among the first to play our beta, we highly encourage you to join our community on Discord!

Toward Astra and beyond!

Alex & Valentin